Hope is resilience, and it is fucking tough. I was talking with a friend about how if you expect the worst, don't let yourself be hopeful, you feel protected and strong, but it is fake. My friend was telling me that he tends to think: "If I know in advance that it was going to be shitty and horrible, I'm no fool, I was right." But then he realized: "Wait, why am I happy to be right about that? This is shitty and horrible!"
Being negative and in a "I'm no fool" mindset feels safe but actually does not protect from harm. It comes from fear. As my friend concluded: "Being hopeful and open is actually the brave thing to do. And I don't want to be a wimp."
don't give up
I agree! Actually, the whole show kind of disproves Kant's attempt to base ethics on universal laws and reasonable choices. What actually helps Eleanor and the others become better people is:
1/ The recognition that being kind to others feels good for us as well. That we do not have to lose something by being kind, at the opposite we gain. Being kind makes us feel good, nourishes our soul, builds trust in others, and better relationships, and good relationships make us happy. I believe recognizing the connection between being kind and our own well-being is the first step.
2/ Facing the reasons why we are unkind, AKA our trauma, so therapy and personal growth basically. At the end of the show, it is what all people who die have to do to get to The Good Place. Healing, growth, and learning that being kind rules.
Not to ramble about the good place but do you ever think about that bit in season 1 where Chidi sarcastically says "do I also need to tell you not to throw sand" and Eleanor responds with "throwing sand is an excellent way to put out a vodka fire" and how that sums up Chidi's character arc so well as well as challenging moral positions like Kant's that claim that there is one exact solution to any given moment because yes, we would all immediately consider throwing sand to be bad, but sometimes it is Genuinely useful and good to throw sand and to apply the ideology of "throwing sand is bad" to Every situation will be to die in a vodka fire.
Since I'm therapist-posting recently:
Legitimately self-compassion is the biggest mental health life hack of all time. I'm NOT talking about self-esteem. You do NOT have to like yourself one bit. You don't have to believe that you're a good person who deserves good things. You just have to believe that you're a person who deserves the things all people deserve.
You can't get from "I'm the Worst" to "I'm a worthy and lovable person" without passing through "I'm just a regular fuckup like everybody else."
Try it on. If you're really addicted to being mean to yourself, you can start by framing it as I'm Not Special. Embrace being a regular fuckup like everybody else.
Here’s to 2023, a year of as many little courageous kindnesses as possible. ♥️
His Dark Materials is a franchise that tackles so many branches of physics and even creates a universe where the main course of study is experimental theology which is all about identifying and explaining dark matter while also adding dimensions to string theory, the multiverse theory, and the very concept of the human soul. At the same time, it aggressively calls out the problem with the state being controlled by the church, how people are condemned for being different and religious fearmongering stops the chance at growth both on an individual and a societal scale. It’s a franchise where the heroes of the story are two children who aren’t allowed to know the prophecy they’re a part of, who save the world unwittingly simply by doing what they believe to be right. Meanwhile, the person who thought he was the hero all along, the person who rallied an army from multiple universes to FIGHT. GOD. HIMSELF. is ultimately consumed by his own ego and forced to take a back seat when he realises he’s just one tiny piece of a much larger story that’s true heart is his own daugher. The child he abandoned, the child he didn’t know or care to know how to look after. It’s a franchise about finding love even when your biological family abandon you, it’s about looking evil in the eye and seeing your own mother, it’s about good and evil not being black and white but instead a complex and cruel mixture of both. It’s about the two worst people you know banding together at the last second to save their daughter with their final breaths. It’s about exploration and learning how to grow through experience, it’s about kindness being shared across the multiverse, exchanging stories with strangers and saving the whole world by doing something perfectly ordinary and receiving no reward.
Oh, and it’s also a franchise rich with fantasy, with giant talking polar bears, witches and ghosts, angels and daemons, and a mammal-like species from another world that travels exclusively on roller skates.
And it fucking. rocks.
if he was still alive I know in my heart that Terry Pratchett would have done a bit about Igors and Igorinas doing gender confirmation surgery by now. going into a lab full of bubbling vials and picking out a penis from a tank the way you pick a lobster. that one, please. you gotta be careful though because they'll really try to upsell you into getting two or three installed. people going to the clinic as pairs and just having parts swapped out for a discounted rate. maybe you actually just trade brains, that's even easier. Igorth have already been doing that thurgery for thenturieth.
stop playing it cool, just be passionate and intense and insane and whoever sticks around is meant for you
the phantom of the opera and the hunchback of notre dame? opposite ends of same spectrum
"so, this thing that happened in 2019-"
"you mean 4 years B.B"
"B.B?"
"Before Barbie"
Sea animals, hopepunk, fantasy, queerness, and a bit of philosophy
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